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1. John M. Repp writes for PeaceVoice and is an activist in Seattle. The following are excerpts from his June 15, 2018 article headlined "UN Report Says US is a 'Shithole Country'” with subheading "Instead of corporate media basically ignoring the UN report, there should be screaming headlines."

(Begin excerpts)
Philip Alston is the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. He traveled to the United States last December to some of our most destitute communities such as Skid Row in LA, poor African American areas in the Alabama, impoverished coal communities in West Virginia and to Puerto Rico. He issued his report on June 1, 2018. It should be front page news.

The report is a terrible indictment of our country and of the Trump Administration. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize winning economist told The Guardian “This administration inherited a bad situation with inequality in the U.S. and is now fanning the flames and worsening the situation. What is so disturbing is that Trump, rather than taking measures to ameliorate the problem, is taking measures to aggravate it.” The U.S. has one in four of the world’s billionaires. But we also have 40 million citizens who live in poverty. Five million live in the absolute deprivation we usually associate with the developing world. Four in ten Americans are so broke that they could not cover an emergency expense of $400 without selling something or borrowing.

The symptoms of the devastating inequality here include Americans now living shorter and sicker lives than citizens of other rich democracies. Life expectancy is down two years in a row. Tropical diseases are on the rise. Our incarceration rate remains the highest in the world (yes, we are exceptional!). Voter registration levels are among the lowest in industrialized countries: 64% of our citizens are registered (fewer vote) compared to 91% in Canada and the UK and 99% in Japan.

As another measure of how much of an outlier in the advanced world the U.S. has become, we can look at the fact that in 1980 the top 1% of the population in the U.S. and Europe held about 10% of the national income. But in 2017, the top 1% in Europe edged up to 12% of national income, but in the U.S. the top 1% grabs up to 20% and rising.

The Trump Administration is making inequality worse. First with the tax cut that rewarded the wealthiest individuals and companies. Then, Trump and the Republicans are stripping healthcare benefits, food stamps and cutting housing subsidies for the poorest Americans. The UN report says the assumption among the politicians who support these cruel policies is that the poor are lazy, don’t want to work, and are dedicated to defrauding the welfare system. Several officials in the government told Alston that scamming the system was rampant but presented no evidence for this assertion.... (End excerpts)

It is a pretty interesting report. Oddly, there are people who are willing to walk 1500 miles, crossing several countries to get to this "shithole country". People have crossed the mighty Atlantic Ocean on ships packed to capacity to get to this "shitehole country". And there are people willing to set sail from Cuba in leaky boats to get here.

It is a pretty interesting report. Oddly, there are people who are willing to walk 1500 miles, crossing several countries to get to this "shithole country". People have crossed the mighty Atlantic Ocean on ships packed to capacity to get to this "shitehole country". And there are people willing to set sail from Cuba in leaky boats to get here.

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It is a pretty interesting report. Oddly, there are people who are willing to walk 1500 miles, crossing several countries to get to this "shithole country". People have crossed the mighty Atlantic Ocean on ships packed to capacity to get to this "shitehole country". And there are people willing to set sail from Cuba in leaky boats to get here.

Your "broken brain" cult leader has turned a decent nation into a "shithole country". If they know the neo-Nazi dude is going to round them up into "cities of tents" which will become massive Nazi concentration camps later on, they would not be so stupid to flock to your "shithole country" to become prisoners.

Your "broken brain" cult leader has turned a decent nation into a "shithole country". If they know the neo-Nazi dude is going to round them up into "cities of tents" which will become massive Nazi concentration camps later on, they would not be so stupid to flock to your "shithole country" to become prisoners.

if only reedak would share how the utopian country he is from has solved all of their problems,...we as a country could greatly benefit.
but alas, he prefers to post from the shadows of obscurity, hurling insults our way with no solutions or context.

if only reedak would share how the utopian country he is from has solved all of their problems,...we as a country could greatly benefit.
but alas, he prefers to post from the shadows of obscurity, hurling insults our way with no solutions or context.

if only reedak would share how the utopian country he is from has solved all of their problems,...we as a country could greatly benefit.
but alas, he prefers to post from the shadows of obscurity, hurling insults our way with no solutions or context.

One fine day, God willing, I shall share with you, Ralph and southern dad (plus northern mum?) how utopian the heavenly kingdom I shall be in has solved all universal problems for all the lost souls on earth.

The following are excerpts from an article headlined "Commentary: I Live in a ‘Shithole Country.’ It’s Called the United States."

(Begin excerpts)
The U.S. is the wealthiest country on earth. Yet one in five children here will go to bed hungry tonight. Thirteen million American children live in poverty, the highest rate among the world’s wealthy countries.

One shining light for poor American kids is that almost all of them have health insurance, thanks to the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) put in place in 1997. That light is rather dim right now, however, as Congress waffles on funding the program, leaving millions of children’s lives in the balance.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty, Philip Alston, conducted a two-week tour of the U.S. in late 2017. He found some of the most extreme inequality anywhere in the world.

“The United States is one of the world’s richest and most powerful and technologically innovative countries,” Alston wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian, “but neither its wealth nor its power nor its technology is being harnessed to address the situation in which 40 million people continue to live in poverty.”

America also has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, the highest infant mortality rate among developed countries, and is the only industrialized country not to guarantee health care as a basic human right. The list goes on, but you get the point.

As Alston put it, “Americans can expect to live shorter and sicker lives, compared to people living in any other rich democracy.”

... the proportion of those actually succeed is steadily shrinking.

Still, this is a country where disoriented hospital patients can be dumped on the street in freezing cold weather, wearing only their thin hospital gowns—as a viral video recently captured happening to a woman in Baltimore. (End excerpts)

ALL reedak's posts are between 9 PM and 9 AM (including weekends), indicating he is approximately 1/2 way around the world from Eastern time U.S., meaning he is somewhere longitudinally where the Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, western Indonesia & China are.

ALL reedak's posts are between 9 PM and 9 AM (including weekends), indicating he is approximately 1/2 way around the world from Eastern time U.S., meaning he is somewhere longitudinally where the Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, western Indonesia & China are.

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